Master Index of Archived Threads


The Stella Awards

KC Jan 05 2007 02:14 PM

Someone emailed me this ... Stella Awards: Time once again to review the winners of the Annual "Stella Awards." The Stella Awards are named after 81 year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued McDonald's (in N.M.). That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous, ridiculous, successful lawsuits in the United States Here are this year's winners 5th Place (tie) Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was awarded $80,000. by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little toddler was Ms. Robertson's son. 5th Place (tie) 19-year-old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.*** 5th Place (tie) Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania, was leaving a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation, and Mr.Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food. He sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed, to the tune of $500,000. In my opinion this is so outrageous that it should have been 2nd Place! 4th Place Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, was awarded $14,500. and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next-door neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. The award was less than sought because the jury thought the dog might have been just a little provoked at the time by Mr. Williams who had climbed over the fence into the yard and was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.*** 3rd Place A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, $113,500. after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. 2nd Place Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware, successfully sued the owner of a night club in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses*** 1st Place This year's run away winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mrs. Grazinski purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, (from an OU football game), having driven onto the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go into the back & make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the RV left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising her in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually do this. The jury awarded her $1,750,000. plus a new motor home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit, just in case there were any other complete morons around.

HahnSolo Jan 05 2007 02:28 PM

This sounded familiar, particularly #1. With a little digging I discovered I had read this before, and it's not true. http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/o/onlyinamerica.htm I think we should be thankful people like this do not exist.

Willets Point Jan 05 2007 02:32 PM

Maybe we should amend the constitution so that legal action is no longer a right of individuals because they are obviously too irresponsible and only corporations can be trusted. Or maybe we can stop spreading around made-up shit.

Edgy DC Jan 05 2007 02:36 PM Re: The Stella Awards

KC wrote: 3rd Place A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, $113,500. after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. This one stands out as fiction. What was she drinking? Dish soap? Motor oil? Most soft drinks give you better traction, not worse. The names have a Mad Magazine fakeness also.

KC Jan 05 2007 02:37 PM

Ya know, why ya gotta be like that? I was a naive email cutter and paster. OE: I was answering Willet not Edgy.

Edgy DC Jan 05 2007 02:53 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Jan 05 2007 04:39 PM

Sorry. I was a naive thread contributor. Desperately trying to avoid work.

KC Jan 05 2007 03:09 PM

I emailed the lawyer that sent it to me that they're all fake. I'd report back what she says, but that's probably not a good idea ....

ScarletKnight41 Jan 05 2007 03:10 PM

For the record, I am not that lawyer.

Edgy DC Jan 05 2007 03:12 PM

Funny thing is that most such lists complaining about big damage awards handed out by juries are distributed to attack lawyers.

KC Jan 05 2007 03:20 PM

SK: >>>For the record, I am not that lawyer<<< For the record, I think of you as a librarian.

Yancy Street Gang Jan 05 2007 03:39 PM

I still think of her as a Cookie Mom.

ScarletKnight41 Jan 05 2007 03:52 PM

I wear many hats.

ScarletKnight41 Jan 05 2007 04:27 PM

On a similar vein - Keep people out of wash, label warns DAVID N. GOODMAN Associated Press DETROIT - Don't clean your kids in the washing machine. Don't dry your cell phone in the microwave. And be sure not to read the phone book while driving. Those are among the winning entries in this year's Wacky Warning Label Contest, run by an anti-lawsuit group. Backers of the right to sue have a warning of their own - don't be so quick to poke fun at labels, which help save lives. They say the contest is part of an effort to pass laws that shield businesses from liability for those they hurt. The Wacky Warning contest winners were chosen from about 150 nominations received by Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, said the group's president, Robert B. Dorigo Jones. The group picked five finalists, and callers to WOMC-FM's Dick Purtan show chose the winners. The top vote-getter was a warning tag from a front-load washing machine. "DO NOT put any person in this washer," it read. Bob Wilkinson, the owner of a coin-operated laundry in Northville Township, a Detroit suburb, won $500 for the submission. Wilkinson said he always wondered why the Huebsch Originators triple-load washer carried the warning and was told it was because of a suit over a death of someone inside a running washing machine. "I've had little children who come in here and get into one of the dryers or the triple loaders," said Wilkinson, 66. "But nobody turns it on." Americans are too eager to sue when something goes wrong, regardless of who's at fault, he said Friday. "That company's trying to protect itself against some vicious lawsuit," he said. A spokeswoman for the manufacturer said the washer warning label is far from wacky. "A front loader is just at the right height - speaking now as a mother and not a corporate spokeswoman - for a 4-year-old," said Patti Andresen-Shew, marketing director for Alliance Laundry Systems LLC in Ripon, Wis. She said there have been lawsuits filed against companies - "fortunately not ours" - after small children got into coin-operated laundry equipment and an older child started the machine. The Center for Justice and Democracy, a group fighting legislation to limit the right to sue, said warning labels play a vital role in protecting the public. "Often, it is only through lawsuits brought by injured consumers that manufacturers have been forced to place critical warning labels on dangerous products, saving millions of lives and preventing innumerable injuries," it said in a statement. Warning labels are important, Dorigo Jones agreed, but he said unwarranted lawsuits lead to labels so bizarre that people ignore them. "People are more likely to get hurt as lawsuit-driven labels get longer and more absurd," the contest organizer said. Dorigo Jones wrote the 2007 book "Remove Child Before Folding: The 101 Stupidest Silliest and Wackiest Warning Labels Ever." Second place went to a warning on a personal watercraft that said, "Never use a lit match or open flame to check fuel level." There was a tie for third place between a statement on a Super Lotto ticket that said, "Do not iron," and a warning on a cell phone that said, "Don't try to dry your phone in a microwave oven." Honorable mention went to a telephone directory with the cover statement, "Please do not use this directory while operating a moving vehicle."

Willets Point Jan 05 2007 04:37 PM

KC wrote: Ya know, why ya gotta be like that? I was a naive email cutter and paster. OE: I was answering Willet not Edgy. Sorry, didn't intend to be mean to you. Just shit like that pisses me off because it's obviously put together by "tort reform" types who want to take away one of the last remaining protections that individuals have against corporations. And that they do it by luring naive cutter & pasters into spreading their false witness. Angry it makes me, I tells you.

KC Jan 05 2007 04:54 PM

No biggie, Willets ... and I learned something to boot. It's interesting what will get people's broth in a boil, ya just never know ...